PONDERING

Joel Weishaus

Around 300 million years ago an amphibious being emerged from the primeval waters, walked on muddy alien ground, and began the long evolution that eventually led to who we are today, the status of the planet we inhabit, and to a pond on which ducks peacefully eat, paddle, quack, and reproduce. Here, too, is the unpredictable, the uncanny, the chasm between the corporeal and the dreaming human mind, on whose shores humanity "poetically dwells."(2) Two famous ponds in Literary History are Henry Thoreau's Walden Pond, and Matsuo Basho's: Old pond / frog leaps in / plop! (3) While Thoreau's pond has become a tourist destination, Basho's pond remains a koan to ponder upon. "Water is also a type of destiny."(4) If he looked into the pond today, Narcissus would see his image wavering along with a humanity haunted by its old gods and myths of origination, while their wizards see an Orphean universe always in midst of new creations. The pond records this and its body ripples in all directions. For this thirtieth. and last, work of Digital Literary Art, twenty poems are "constricted," requiring words whose syllables allow the lines to break evenly, a discipline of Late Style. In this spirit, the paintings were made with a little help from old versions of programs that still skillfully do the job. A screen of at least 13" is required to view the work as it is intended to be seen and read. 1. Matthew Johnson, Senior Planner / Community Development. City of Forest Grove OR. 2. Martin Heidegger quoting Friedrich Hölderlin. 3. There are many translations of Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizo no oto. 4. Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams. Dallas, 2006.     TITLES (LINKS)   1. When A Human Eye Opened 2. Sweet Scent Of Autumn Shadows 3. On A Parallel Road 4. When Earth Was Young 5. From A Secluded Pond 6. Unlike Walden 7. This Old Pond Dreams It's Dancing 8. Like A Pond That Can't Be 9. As The Sun Rises The Shadows 10. The Pond Stretches Into The Night 11. Even Though It Knows Quacking 12. In His Scarlet Cap 13. Grass Wears The Crystals 14. Every Pond Has Dreamed 15. When We Walked On The Shards 16. Scanning Water Trudging Through 17. A Dense Fog Slips Over The Pond 18. The Pond Flows In Around And Out 19. On The Mountain's Lips A God 20. When We Find That In The Beginning   NOTES (LINK)   For Susan. Always. Thank You to: The University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research, Portland State University, Department of Philosophy, for your invaluable support. (C) Joel Weishaus 2026